Brecht’s Quarrel with God: From Anti-Theodicy to Eschatology

Brecht's Quarrel with God: From Anti-Theodicy to Eschatology Edward M. Berckman 0 Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and thou wilt not hear? For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes for:th perverted. Habakkuk 1.2, 4 The most important historical consequence of the disin­ tegration of the Christian theodicy in the consciousness of Western man has • . . been the inauguration of an age of revolution. History and human actions in history have become the dominant instrumentalization by which the nomization of suffering and evil is to be sought. Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy Why is malice well rewarded? Why do punishments await the good? what's to be done? Change human nature or-the world? Well: which? Believe in bigger, better gods or-none? Shen Te, in Brecht, The Good Woman of Setzuan Bertolt Brecht's acknowledgment that the Bible was the single book which had influenced him most has elicited from scholars several investigations into the nature of that influence on his work, particularly his style and use of Biblical sayings.I � attention has been given to the personal relationship to Christianity and its God reflected in his writing. In his later years as a dialectical materialist, Brecht took the position that the only significant religious questions had to do not with "the inner essence of religion, the existence of God,'' but with "the behavior of religious men, discourse about God."2 Yet many of his writ130 Edward M. Berckman 131 ings suggest that he found the existence and behavior of God a significant question indeed. And scrutiny of his total work reveals a persistent concern with what may be called the theodicy ques­ tion, illustrated in its Biblical and Brechtian forms by the first and third quotations cited above as epigraphs. The insights of Biblical scholars and sociologists of religion can help us see this concern as a crucial factor in Brecht's de­ velopment from a bitter nihilist into a Marxist committed to the struggle and the hope for a changed world of justice and friend­ liness. The young Brechrt responded to the persistence of human misery and injustice with accusations against Christians and their God, who permitted these evils by His indifference or non­ existence. Once Marxism provided Brecht a diagnosis and the promise of an ultimate remedy, he labored to arouse audiences to the same perception and comm itment which gave his own life meaning-while continuing to attack religious beliefs and insti­ tutions which justified the status quo. Concern with theodicy was therefore a basic element of continuity in the thought of a play­ wright whose career is usually divided into three, or four, distinct phases. Most scholars who have considered Brecht's relationship to Christianity agree, at least, on the ambivalent and contradictory nature of his attitude.3 Reinhold Grimm , modifying his earlier view that Brecht's response to the Christian message was "un­ compromisingly rejecting," has proposed that Christianity was "the stumbling block which constantly excited his creative impulse anew." In fact, Grimm believes, "Brecht's contradictory relationship to Christianity forms the hidden ground out of which sprang the poet's turning to Marxism."4 Norbert Kohlhase devotes a chapter of his book on Brecht and Camus to "Negative and Hidden Theology." He offers the cryptic comment that "Brecht's atheism stands in the middle of faith and draws its strength from it."5 Like Grimm and Kohlhase, Barbara Allen Woods, in her study of Biblical sayings in Brecht's work, relates his Marxist conversion to his disappointment with regard to Christianity: "Since Brecht sees in Christianity the failure to create conditions favorable to the achievement of its own ideals, he turns against its institutions, and demands a changed society that will carry out the ancient commandment [love thy neighbor] in its new formulation: 'dasz der Mensch dem Menschen ein Helfer ist' [that man be a helper to man]."6 132 Comparative Drama These clues, however, have not been followed up system­ atically to trace the evolution of Brecht's compassionate, anti­ religious humanitarianism into the eschatological hopes which supported his Marxist commitment. And scholars who have noted in Brecht's work the presence of "the...